Frequency hopping is a well-known technique used in wireless communications systems to protect against interference or other channel impairments. However, it has the following drawbacks:                The overhead caused by constantly switching channels, during which time the system is unable to transmit information, increases as the bit rate increases because for a given amount of downtime, the amount of data that cannot be transmitted also increases. For example, for a 100 Mb/s link and 1 ms downtime, the amount of data which cannot be transmitted while frequency switching is going on, is 100 000 bits or 12.5 kBytes.        The interference produced and received in frequency hopping systems expands on all channels on which it hops.        The time it takes a communication slave to find its communication master is much longer if the master is continuously hopping.        
In order to avoid this overhead, but enjoy all the advantages of frequency hopping, in the system described here, frequency hopping only occurs if interference is detected. If no interference is detected, no hopping occurs. Furthermore, since frequency hopping does not occur on a regular basis, there is less chance of interference to and from nearby systems. Since the system operates on a fixed frequency in the absence of interference, links can be established much faster on this system than in traditional frequency hopping systems.